CTD-What The Player Knows

Everyone got so caught up in discussing the details about the aliens and x-corps that no-one figured out what the player is told at the begining. Anyway, this is what I wrote as an introduction to be included with or inside the game. all the years are written with the "ten years from now rule" in mind. This ctd is written as a person in 2004 would see it.

It is the year 2014. Over the past five years the number of sightings of UFOs, or Unidentified Flying Objects, has increased drmatically. Recently, tales of alien abductions of up to 20 or more people at once have caused even the most skeptical among us to admit that something strange is going on. These events have caused massive public hysteria, with people rioting in the streets demanding that their governments do something to stop the alien threat.

Several organizations attempted to combat the aliens on their own. The United States and Canadian NORAD shot down a few UFOs, however their operations were severely hampered when their headquarters was destroyed by the alien menace. (List more organizations here). Soon after these efforts it was realized that international cooperation was needed to stop the aliens.

During a UN session in 2012, the majority of countries agreed that the alien menace needed to be stopped, however few stepped up to the plate due to fear of alien reprisals. Early in the year of 2013, representatives from the world's most economically powerful countries secretly convened in Geneva in order to find a solution to this problem. During the rest of the year, the "council of funding nations" as they would come to be known decided to create an organization called x-corps, or the xenocide-corps, and the entire operation was to be called "project xenocide". The council figured out who would lead the organization, how much the organization would be funded, and how much authority it would have.

Their final decision was that you would be the leader of the x-corps, that each country in the council would decide how much money to contribute to project xenocide each month each month, and that the x-corps would have the authority to recruit anyone on the planet, send missions to anywhere on the planet, and build bases in any place on the planet.

After these decisions were reached, the UN was told that "a solution to the alien problem has been found" and nothing more. To this day, the day when x-corps begins operations, no-one but the leaders of the funding nations, a handful of members of those governments, and those recruited into x-corps (including you), know more than what the UN was told. And many of those people know little more.

EDIT: By the way I need some ideas for organizations, or names of currently existent organizations, to list here.

It was. . . maybe I should change it. . .
EDIT: It's hard not to make the intro look like the x-com one, mainly because the plot is exactly the same.

EDIT2: See if you like this better.

Mission briefing for project xenocide, (put game starting date here)-

As you may already know, the number of sightings of UFOs, or Unidentified Flying Objects, has increased dramatically over the past five years. Recently, tales of alien abductions of up to 20 or more people at once have caused even the most skeptical among us to admit that something strange is going on. These events have caused severe public hysteria, with people rioting in the streets demanding that their governments do something to stop the alien threat.

Several organizations have attempted to combat the aliens on their own. The United States and Canadian NORAD shot down a few UFOs, however their operations were severely hampered when their headquarters was destroyed by the alien menace. (List more organizations here). Soon after these efforts it was realized that world-wide cooperation was needed to stop the aliens.

During a UN session two years ago, the majority of countries agreed that the alien menace needed to be stopped, however few stepped forward due to fear of alien reprisals. Early last year, representatives from the world's most economically powerful countries secretly convened in an undisclosed location in order to find a solution to this problem. During the rest of the year, the "council of funding nations", which is the group's current designation, decided to create an organization called x-corps, or the xenocide-corps, and the entire operation was to be called "project xenocide". The council also figured out many of the details of how the organization would function, and they selected you as the x-corps commander.

You're mission is, first and foremost, to protect the people of Earth. In order to do this you will need to find out where the aliens are coming from, what they want, and you will need to both develop and reverse engineer new technologies to aid in your fight. You have been given full authority by all of the funding nations to shoot down UFOs and engage them on their territory, and you are expected to do this on every nation's territory, as diplomatic relations will be dealt with by a separate body which need not concern you. You may also build bases anywhere it is feasible to do so. Again, diplomatic relations will be handled by a separate entity.

In order to carry out the necessary operations, you have been given a base with all the facilities you need to begin combat operations. You have also been given some of the best soldiers, scientists, and engineers on the planet. Funding for your organization has been provided by each of the funding nations separately with each nation providing the amount they feel is deserved by your organization. Each nation may change it's monthly commitment at any time if they feel that you are performing poorer or better than they expected. Secrecy is also of importance in this mission. Very few people have been told of the existence of x-corps and the information that has been divulged to the planet is that "we are dealing with the planer". Every time you feel like quitting, remember that the fate of the planet is at stake, and hope that your supporters remember that as well.

I think you should include how we tried to contact them peacefully, but they were either ignored or zapped to dust.
Although, that WOULD be stealing from the X-COM manual!

Haha! I'm now the Supreme Commander of X-COM. Time to kiss Earth goodbye.

My first order of business: Homeless people make cheap rookies, and are great at opening UFO doors. Heck, they're so cheap, I'm going to replace all personel with them! Secondly: This organisation takes too much money to run. Weapon shipments will come from Siberia from now on. Costly maintenance is to be cut on all facilities. That includes venting.Thirdly: We have a new colonel. His name is Facehugger, he loves aliens, and I want you all to treat him with respect.Lastly: I'll be in my condo on an undisclosed island, if you need me. Good day.

There is a bit from the alien origins text that might be useful here, we could modify it to fit more with the 'evil' nature of the aliens versus the supply ship thing. You could say that people started going missing and residents started seeing strange lights in the night sky, so military patrols increased to see if it was linked with the strange radar signatures they were picking up in the area. Then there's the relevent portion of text:

As fate would have it, the first supply flight to begin building ended in disaster. A newly designed human aircraft intercepted the ship and shot it down. Before a rescue team could be dispatched, the humans sent their own group to investigate. Local police and national guardsmen arrived to find several aliens, and a firefight ensued. The outnumbered aliens were totally surrounded as reinforcements were quickly called in, but their overwhelming firepower became evident as they methodically annihilated the Terrans. Finally an air strike arrived, and the aliens were defeated. From the wreckage, the humans were able to determine the ship had carried supplies of an alien nature. Due to the international news coverage of the event, there was no chance of covering up the incident. In fact, many nations were able to witness parts of the battle on live television, and they were terrified. The Xenoincursion Emergency Summit was held, and the decision was made to create an international organization to deal with this new threat. All research into the aliens would be centered there, to focus the resistance effort. They would try to determine where these aliens were from, what they wanted, and how to defeat them if they were all as hostile as this first example indicated. International monetary support was guaranteed, as were the rights to build bases of operations wherever they would be the most effective.

I think some of the organizations that should be mentioned are ones like, MJ-12 and the Illuminati.. but in differing aspects...

"As the alien menace revealed it self to us some organizations like MJ-12 rose up agianst them. While others like the illuminati embraced them. It was decided that if the human race were to survive that it must unite as whole." (maybe slip in something how all the countries were fingers of a hand and togther they became a clenched fist ? )

I really loathe dialogue or breifings which start with the phrase "As you already know". If I already know, why are you telling me!!

I'd like to see it in a report format, with more emphasis on the governments wanting you to deal with the problem in a nice, subtle, quick and quiet way, while they go on denying that nothing has been happening.

In this way I would also prefer to leave out any reference to massive destruction by any aliens. (Wait!! ... Unless you want to include it as a cover up!). Since this is not supposed to be an all out war.

Both of these points would help clarify why instead of blitzing every UFO crashsite with thousands of tanks they send twelve guys with rifles and T-shirts.

Attached Files

MagicAndy, excellent writeup--very professional and also realistic. However, I do have a few suggestions.

Firstly, this is a nitpicky kind of thing, but my language arts teacher has always told us to write out single-digit numbers when used in text. So, maybe you could spell out "two" and "five" in the second paragraph.

Secondly, the attacks on major cities (Paris, Osaka, etc.) were blamed for normal terrorists, but thinking realistically, wouldn't the general public and local government officials realize that they were not being attacked by humans, and would alert the rest of the world?

Lastly, I think maybe you could drop the paragraph headings such as "Abductions" and "Attacks", which would make it look more like a real letter. It still reads very well even without the headings.

Otherwise, keep up the excellent work. I really like the signature at the end too.

One more thing. Instead of "U.S.S. Independent" did you mean to put "U.S.S. Independence"? I think the Independence is a real ship, and I wasn't sure whether you wanted to use its name or not.

regarding the attacks, I thought that until X-corps was actually up and running nad looking actively for UFOs, local people wouldn't know what was causing the attacks, and they would assume truck bombs or even, or some cover up could be taking place by national governments, who would move in quickly to cordon off the area, and claim a crashed military aircraft or massive WWI bomb or whatever.

Remember that without X-corps the aliens would get on with the job quickly and there would be very little in the way or warning and absolutely no surviving witnesses.

If you think this bit needed clarifying, revising or just removing, post your thoughts.

Back to the drawing board. This time I have altered the report to include the incident mentioned by Breunor:

As fate would have it, the first supply flight to begin building ended in disaster. A newly designed human aircraft intercepted the ship and shot it down. Before a rescue team could be dispatched, the humans sent their own group to investigate. Local police and national guardsmen arrived to find several aliens, and a firefight ensued. The outnumbered aliens were totally surrounded as reinforcements were quickly called in, but their overwhelming firepower became evident as they methodically annihilated the Terrans. Finally an air strike arrived, and the aliens were defeated. From the wreckage, the humans were able to determine the ship had carried supplies of an alien nature. Due to the international news coverage of the event, there was no chance of covering up the incident. In fact, many nations were able to witness parts of the battle on live television, and they were terrified. The Xenoincursion Emergency Summit was held, and the decision was made to create an international organization to deal with this new threat. All research into the aliens would be centered there, to focus the resistance effort. They would try to determine where these aliens were from, what they wanted, and how to defeat them if they were all as hostile as this first example indicated. International monetary support was guaranteed, as were the rights to build bases of operations wherever they would be the most effective.

This incident I have refered to as the "Townsville Incident May 10th 2011" in the following report which is my interpretation of the player brieifng at the start of the game.

It comes from the Cheif intelligence officer of the Xenoincursion Emergency Summit JIC:

In the wake of the world response to the 10th of May 2011, our organisation was asked by you to assess the alien threat and recommend a response.

We have now completed the collection of data on all incidents involving extraterrestrial interaction since 2005. What we have analysed so far is extremely concerning.

Alien Sightings: In 2005, confirmed UFO sightings increased by 500% compared to the previous year. Since that time sightings have been on the increase. Today 2 out of every 5 people claim to have seen a UFO. We have confirmed that now that nearly 600 million people witnessed the events of 5/10 on live television. Although much of the footage was indistinct, the whole world has witnessed the hostile alien forces.

Alien Abductions:Claims of abductions have also becoming more common even before 5/10. What is even more frightening is that some of those “taken” are beginning to bear similar marks and recount identical experiences. We can no longer assume that abduction claims are fabrications. Since 2005, the number of missing person reports has skyrocketed. We must assume the worst.

Alien Attacks:We now have reason to believe that UFOs may be behind the localised destruction in Paris, Osaka, New Delhi, Monrovia and several other large cities where large explosions rocked urban and sub-urban areas. By the time any real military force was organised in these incidents there where no surviving witnesses to be found. Many of these attacks where previously blamed on terrorists, we recommend a thorough re-investigation, armed with our new knowledge.

Encounters:The four hour battle between National Guardsmen’s and hostile alien forces on the outskirts of Townsville on the 10th of May 2011 changed the world forever. Incredibly we have now uncovered previous engagements that where not disclosed to the public. Prior to 5/10, we have now discovered that the RAF secretly engaged an unidentified flying over the English Channel. The incident resulted in a very large loss of life and equipment. Investigators returning from the wreck of the U.S.S. Independent have found spent ammunition and large holes melted into the hull. It seems that the initial report of a technical malfunction, resulting in a catastrophic explosion was not entirely accurate.

Analysis:Although our attention has only now been drawn to the issue. Alien activity has actually been increasing exponentially since 2005. At it seems that some individuals and organisations may actually have been fully aware of this. Our investigations into The Illuminati have as yet, yielded no definite connections. Now that we have the aliens’ full attentions, the trend is likely to continue. 5/10 will happen again and further incidents will only become more frequent and severe. Unless the situation is dealt with now, these minor insurgencies may blossom into all out war. A war which we may very well loose.

Recommendations:Many Governments, unsure what to do, are choosing to ignore the threat and even deny its existence. This is in spite of the evidence of 5/10 staring them in the face, which is causing growing public hysteria and on going demonstrations. The threat is certainly very real and though in the interests of worldwide political and economic stability we must deal with this problem as quickly and quietly as possible.

It is clear that individual Nations cannot hope to win this fight by themselves. Although the problem has been with us now for more than five years in one form or another, we we’re totally unprepared for 5/10, and are still in no stronger a position to deal with the threat. We know virtually nothing about the enemy, their wishes, goals and most importantly – technology. This must be rectified, and we believe an international coalition force, separate from any existing body, being both impartial and apolitical is the best option for accomplishing this.

We recommend the commencement of “Project Xenocide”, as detailed in Appendices 1-64 of this report. In brief:

1. The UN will give its approval to begin immediately laying the ground work of a funding body of governments, by which an international coalition force be supported.

2. This body will be formed outside the jurisdiction of the UN, this will ensure plausible deniability for any government.

3. This body will be called “The Council of Funding Nations” and should be operational by 2013.

4. The UN will found “X-corps” (Standing for Xenocide Corps) to be funded by the CFN.

5. X-corps will be afforded unrestricted access to the best weapons, technology and personnel in the world.

6. X-corps will remain an undisclosed, and its activities secret.

7. X-corps will report to the Council of Funding Nations Only.

8. X-corps will follow its own set of regulations and will operate outside all national and international law.

9. X-corps will have ultimate power to build its facilities and conduct its mission anywhere on the planet.

10. X-corps will begin active service on the 1st of January 2014

Finally, we recommend that national governments should declare that executive action has been taken, and a solution found. People should be encouraged wherever possible return to normality to prevent the breakdown of society.

Conclusion:Once Project Xenocide is complete, we will have a unified fighting force able deal with this threat. The organisation will be an amalgamation of science, military and engineering powers. Its forces must endeavour to solve this crisis as soon as possible to avoid loosing the confidence of people and governments alike. Its goals will be to learn about this menace, find methods of defeating it wherever it arises and, ultimately, eradicated it.

Sorry I missed your earlier posts MagicAndy, that last writeup looks very good. This would be a very good starting text for the player to get, and perhaps we can make additional snippets available later on, using the "fluff text" expansion to the X-Net discussed in the other thread. This could reflect the scientists and engineers that are recruited, and as research is conducted someone might note, "you know, when I worked at MIT the FBI brought us some weird material just like this, etc etc". That way to player can get more info that outside groups had, but had not yet shared.

Using this initial text as the main background the player has is a good idea, as they would not have too much additional info (unless they themselves had been abducted!). The disemination of information is an excercise of control... and we are in charge here!

Just had a read through. Some corrections if you don't mind?
NB: I haven't read anything 'official' in the forums about 5/10 incident, maybe details of that should be included either in this report or elsewhere?Similarly, I haven't read about USS Independent sinking.
Could someone direct me there? (forgive me if its got a bright red large thread subject yelling INTRO TO XENOCIDE.. I might have missed it!)

First time I'm attaching, hope it gets through!

Attached Files

The "5/10 Townsviller" incident was a date a place that I made up for this snipet that that Breunor posted higher up on this thread: it can be changed to whatever everyone decides but I thought that i had batter include it since it was already written in the alien orgins(?) ct:

As fate would have it, the first supply flight to begin building ended in disaster. A newly designed human aircraft intercepted the ship and shot it down. Before a rescue team could be dispatched, the humans sent their own group to investigate. Local police and national guardsmen arrived to find several aliens, and a firefight ensued. The outnumbered aliens were totally surrounded as reinforcements were quickly called in, but their overwhelming firepower became evident as they methodically annihilated the Terrans. Finally an air strike arrived, and the aliens were defeated. From the wreckage, the humans were able to determine the ship had carried supplies of an alien nature. Due to the international news coverage of the event, there was no chance of covering up the incident. In fact, many nations were able to witness parts of the battle on live television, and they were terrified. The Xenoincursion Emergency Summit was held, and the decision was made to create an international organization to deal with this new threat. All research into the aliens would be centered there, to focus the resistance effort. They would try to determine where these aliens were from, what they wanted, and how to defeat them if they were all as hostile as this first example indicated. International monetary support was guaranteed, as were the rights to build bases of operations wherever they would be the most effective.

OK have included some of the revisions awof suggested:

some points:1. don't want to make figures and stuff too speecific as this is the heading letter of a 6000 page (or some such) document. Also specific numbers will restrict us.

2. I wanted to emphasise points of playing the game in the letter, that is why I singled out alien technology at the end.

3. Unrestricted access doesn't mean free, it just means able to buy what they want. Also, I always thought the soldiers were the "best of the best" excluding what we the individual countries wanted to keep for ourselves. Basically to face off an evil, screeching alien fireing white hot plasma from the burning wrekage of a spaceship in the dead of night requires a fair amount of discipline.

In the wake of the world response to the [10th of May 2011], our organisation was asked by you to assess the magnistude of the threat posed by these aliens, to gather intelligence on this potential enemy, and recommend a response.

We have now completed the collection of data on all incidents involving claimed extraterrestrial interaction since 2005, examining data and research that was previously dismissed as laughable. With the benifit of hindsight, after [5/10] the evidence we have analysed so far now appears to be extremely concerning. A summary of our findings (Appendixes 1 to 63 supplied) now follows:

Sighting of UFO's, now associated with aliens, were increasing prior to this year: In 2005 for example, confirmed UFO sightings increased nearly eight fold compared to 2004. This rise continued right up to [5/10]. Today, possibly two out of every five people may have seen a UFO. We have confirmed that now that nearly 600 million people watched the events of 5/10 on live television. Although much of the footage was indistinct, much of the world has now witnessed the hostile alien forces.

Alien abduction claims leading upto [5/10] are began to show consitencies:such claims where also becoming more common. Claims of abductions haveare also.. also becoming more common even before 5/10. What is even more frightening is that some of those “taken” are beginning to bear similar marks and recount identical experiences. We can no longer assume that abduction claims are fabrications. Since 2005, the number of missing person reports has skyrocketed and we are worried about a possible connection.

Possible previous alien attacks may have been misenterpreted or covered up::We now have reason to believe that hostile alien forces may be behind the highly localised destruction in Paris, Osaka, New Delhi, Monrovia and several other large cities. Though most these where previously blamed on terrorists (appart from Paris where it was claimed that a large WWII bomb exploded), many inconsistancies existed. In these incidents by the military forces arrived at the scences, there were no surviving witnesses remained. We recommend a thorough re-investigation, armed with our new knowledge of this alien threat.

Some national governments had, prior to [5/10] covered up possible encounters with alien forces:The four hour battle between National Guardsmen’s and hostile alien forces on the outskirts of [Townsville on the 10th of May 2011 changed the world forever. Incredibly though we have now uncovered previous engagements that where not disclosed to the public or international securities agencies. 3 years ealier, the RAF secretly engaged an unidentified flying object over the English Channel. The incident resulted in the loss of all three aircraft and crew involved. In another incident, investigators returning from the wreck of the U.S.S. Independent where gagged when they reported large holes melted into the hull, and the report was subsequently changed to technical malfunction, resulting in a catastrophic explosion.

Analysis:Although our attention has only now been drawn to the issue, alien activity has actually been increasing significantly since 2005. The coverups show that some were aware of the increase alien intereference, possibly even contact with the extraterestrials. Our investigations into organisations such as the Illuminati have, as of yet, yeaidled no results. One thing is clear however, [5/10] was the unavoidable consequence of continuously increaseing alien activity. This increase seems set to continue and thus we can be assured that [5/10] will happen again and such incidents will only become more frequent and severe. Unless the situation is dealt with now, these minor insurgencies may blossom into all out war; a war which we may very well loose.

Recommendations: Many governments, unsureof what to do, are choosing to ignore the threat and even deny its existence. This is in spite of the evidence of [5/10] staring them in the face, and is causing increased public hysteria, civil unrest. The threat is certainly very real, but in the interests of worldwide political and economic stability we must deal with this problem as quickly and quietly as possible.

It is clear that individual nations cannot hope to win this fight by themselves. This insurgence is directed at mankind as a race, and we should deal with it as such. Although the problem has been with us now for more than five years in one form or another, we totally unprepared for [5/10], and are still in no stronger adelete stronger aposition to deal with the threatto deal with such threats?. We know virtually nothing about the enemy, their wishes, goals and, most thier technology - a factor that seems to give them a distinct advantage of us. This must be rectified, and we believe an international coalition force, separate from any existing body, being both impartial and apolitical is the best option for accomplishing this.

We recommend the commencement of “Project Xenocide” (as detailed in Appendices 64 to 132 supplied). In summary:

1. The UN will give its approval to begin immediately laying the ground work of a funding body of governments, by which an international coalition force be supported.

2. This body will be formed outside the jurisdiction of the UN, this will ensure plausible deniability for any government.

3. This body will be called “The Council of Funding Nations” and should be operational by 2013.

4. The UN will found "The Xenocide Corps", aka X-Corps to be funded by the CFN.

5. X-corps will be afforded unrestricted access to to the best weapons, technology and personnel the world has to offer.

6. X-corps will remain an undisclosed organisation, and its activities secret.

7. X-corps will report to the Council of Funding Nations only.

8. X-corps will follow its own set of regulations and will operate outside all national and international law.

9. X-corps will have ultimate soverienty to build its facilities and conduct its missions anywhere on the planet.

10. X-corps will begin active service on the 1st of January 2014

Finally, we recommend that national governments and the UN should issue a statements declaring that executive action has been taken and a solution found. People should be encouraged wherever possible return to thier normal lives to prevent the breakdown of society.

Conclusion:Once Project Xenocide is initiated we will have a unified fighting force, able to deal with this threat. The organisation will be an amalgamation of science, military and engineering powers. Its forces must endeavour to solve this crisis as soon as possible. Unless progress is shown, panic will soon begin to take hold, and governments may withdraw support. Its goals will be to learn about this menace, find methods of defeating it at every opportunity and, ultimately, eradicate it.

In the wake of the world response to the [10th of May 2011], our organization was asked by you to assess the magnitude of the threat posed by the aliens, gather intelligence on the enemy, and recommend the appropriate response.

We have now completed the recollection of data on all incidents since 2005 involving so-claimed “extraterrestrial interaction”, data and research that were previously dismissed for their Improbability. With the benefits of hindsight, and surely after the [5-10] incident, the evidence we have analyzed so far appears to be extremely concerning. A summary of our findings (Appendixes 1 to 63 supplied) now follows:

Sighting of UFO's, now associated with aliens, were increasing prior to this year: In 2005 for instance, confirmed UFO sightings increased nearly eight times compared to 2004. This rise continued right up to [5-10]. Today, possibly two out of every five people may have seen a UFO. We have now confirmed that nearly 600 million people watched the events of [5-10] on live television. Although much of the footage was indistinct, much of the world has now witnessed the destructive power the aliens possess.

Alien abduction claims leading up to [5-10] are beginning to show consistencies:such claims are also becoming more common. Claims of abductions are also becoming more common even before [5-10]. Worse, a small group of those who were “abducted” are beginning to bear similar markings and recall identical experiences. We can no longer assume that abduction claims are fabrications. Since 2005, the number of missing person reports has skyrocketed and we are worried about a possible connection.

Possible previous alien attacks may have been misinterpreted or covered up:We now have reason to believe that hostile alien forces may be behind the highly localized destruction in Paris, Osaka, New Delhi, Monrovia and several other large cities. Though most these where previously blamed on terrorists (apart from Paris where it was claimed that a large WWII bomb exploded), many inconsistencies existed. In all of the incidents mentioned above, by the time military forces arrived at the locations, there were never any survivors. We recommend a second thorough investigation, bearing in mind the new and alarming knowledge of this alien threat.

Some national governments had, prior to [5-10] covered up possible encounters with alien forces:The four hour battle between National Guardsmen’s and hostile alien forces on the outskirts of [Townsville on the 10th of May 2011] changed the world forever. Though we have now uncovered previous engagements that where not disclosed to the public or international securities agencies, 3 years earlier, the RAF secretly engaged an unidentified flying object over the English Channel. The incident resulted in the loss of all three aircraft and crew involved. In another incident, investigators returning from the wreck of the U.S.S. Independent where gagged when they reported large holes melted into the hull, and the report was subsequently changed to technical malfunction, resulting in a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.

Analysis:Although our attention has only now been drawn to the issue, alien activity has actually been increasing significantly since 2005. The cover-ups tricks that some of us used back in the twentieth century are no longer viable, as the awareness of the population increases at an exponential rate; possibly caused by any given direct contact with the extraterrestrials. Our investigations into organizations such as the Illuminati have, as of yet, yielded no results. One thing is clear however, [5-10] was the unavoidable consequence of continuously increasing alien activity. This increase seems set to continue and thus we can be assured that [5-10] will happen again and such incidents will only become more frequent and bigger in importance. Unless the situation is dealt with now, these minor insurgencies may blossom into all out war; a war which we may very well loose.

Recommendations: Many governments, unsure of what to do, are choosing to ignore the threat and even deny its existence; despite of the evidence of [5-10]. The threat is certainly very real, but in the interests of worldwide political and economic stability we must deal with this problem as quickly and as quietly as possible so that the population is plunged into public hysteria and chaos.

It is clear that individual nations cannot hope to win this fight by themselves. This insurgence is directed at mankind as a race, and we should deal with it as such. Although the problem has been with us now for more than five years in one form or another, and certainly totally unprepared for [5-10], and are still in no position to deal with such threats. We know virtually nothing about the enemy, their goals and, most importantly, their technology - a factor that seems to give them a distinct advantage over us. This must be rectified, and we believe an international coalition force, separate from any existing body, being both impartial and apolitical is the best option for accomplishing this.

We recommend the recognition of “Project Xenocide” (as detailed in Appendices 64 to 132 supplied). In summary:

1. The UN will give its approval to begin immediately laying the ground work of a funding body of governments, by which an international coalition force be supported.

2. This body will be formed outside the jurisdiction of the United Nations, as this will ensure plausible deniability for any government.

3. This body will be called “The Council of Funding Nations” and should be operational by 2013.

4. The United Nations will found "The Xenocide Corps" (X-Corps), to be funded by the CFN.

5. X-corps will be given unrestricted access to the any weapons, technology currently in development as well as any kind of personnel that may be beneficial to the organization.

6. X-corps will remain an undisclosed organization, and all its activities secret.

7. X-corps will report to the Council of Funding Nations only.

8. X-corps will follow its own set of regulations and will operate outside all national and international law.

9. X-corps will have ultimate sovereignty to build its facilities and conduct its missions anywhere on the planet.

10. X-corps will enter active service on the 1st of January 2014.

Finally, we recommend that national governments and the United Nations should issue a statement declaring that an executive action has been taken and a solution found. People should be encouraged wherever possible return to their normal lives to prevent the breakdown of society.

Conclusion:Once Project Xenocide is initiated we will have a unified fighting force, able to deal with this threat. The organization will be an amalgamation of science, military and engineering powers. Its forces must endeavor to solve this crisis as soon as possible. Unless progress is shown, panic will soon begin to take hold, and governments may withdraw support. Its goals will be to learn about this menace, find methods of defeating it at every opportunity and, ultimately, eradicate it.

Signed on behalf of the XESJIC:

F. Stattrovksy – Chief Intelligence Officer

Edited by Robo Dojo 58, 27 May 2004 - 06:56 AM.

Haha! I'm now the Supreme Commander of X-COM. Time to kiss Earth goodbye.

My first order of business: Homeless people make cheap rookies, and are great at opening UFO doors. Heck, they're so cheap, I'm going to replace all personel with them! Secondly: This organisation takes too much money to run. Weapon shipments will come from Siberia from now on. Costly maintenance is to be cut on all facilities. That includes venting.Thirdly: We have a new colonel. His name is Facehugger, he loves aliens, and I want you all to treat him with respect.Lastly: I'll be in my condo on an undisclosed island, if you need me. Good day.

This text has turned out great, thanks to everybody that worked on it. I think this is right on, and a great opening document. For future reference, when changes or edits are made, please just use red text so we know where the changes are at, thanks.

Perhaps we can come up with some catchy term to use for the 5/10 incident? Perhaps it could occur on some holiday, the way the Valentine Day Massacre did?

Haha! I'm now the Supreme Commander of X-COM. Time to kiss Earth goodbye.

My first order of business: Homeless people make cheap rookies, and are great at opening UFO doors. Heck, they're so cheap, I'm going to replace all personel with them! Secondly: This organisation takes too much money to run. Weapon shipments will come from Siberia from now on. Costly maintenance is to be cut on all facilities. That includes venting.Thirdly: We have a new colonel. His name is Facehugger, he loves aliens, and I want you all to treat him with respect.Lastly: I'll be in my condo on an undisclosed island, if you need me. Good day.

Heres another idea to ponder over, maybe its just me but I love having differing background on my games so I can get into em.
Should we add some "newpaper clippings" about things (such as 5/10, etc)
Heres what I mean

Hostile Forces
5-11-2011
associated press

May 11, 2011
national news wire services
Townsville was a normal town, yesterday morning, however last night the town became a warzone. According to several government sources and eye witnesses at or around 8:30pm EST Fighters were seen flying overhead to intercept, what at that time, was a UFO. After a short air battle the Alien craft was shot down but to the horor of the town ocupants and police and the National Guardsmen sent to secure the site, many of the aliens survived. What ensued can only be called a fierce battle. Many details are unknown but perlimnary reports tell us that most the the Guardsmen and Police attempting to secure the crash site were killed. Not until an airstrike was ordered were the attackers finally stopped. However town ocupants are worried that one or more of the aliens escaped and was hiding in the wooded area around the town. As one local pastor said. "heck has just arrived"

And maybe another 3 or 4 differnt newspapers on differing events?
Just an idea.

I agree with the news snippets, someone should work on that, but make sure the news snippets tie in with whats going on in the main story's. Not just a sudden 'Farmer Brown woke up last week and saw his cows being abducted', more like ' Farmer Joe living on the outskirts of Townsville saw a roundish object (UFO) followed by a lance of military earth aircraft and then heard a boom sound, and 5 minutes later it was on the news'.. Critique. Thats just what I think now..

here is my revision..
red for 'this must be changed to what I've written IMHO
orange for 'my thoughts/suggestions
{} brackets for 'line of text concerned, usually to be edited

phew!!
Don't think I'll be doing any more revisions (of text) as I have to start on MY reisions (of Physics,Biology,Chemistry..!!) Exams in one week :whatwhat: . Or I might still do it (naughty lazy guy ) but it will come a bit slower..

Attached Files

Nice job awof-I really like it.. I think once we decide on the final version of the intro letter we can start working seriously on the "Newspaper clippings" its hard to write on events we (or maybe just I ) Know so little about right now.
Then we can decide on what stories are put in

The X-Corps will be given carte blanche when dealing with the alien menace

and to counter balance:

The CFN can opt to reduce or increase their funding depending on how effective they judge the X-Corps to be when dealing with the threat in their particular zones.

We also need the newspapaer clippings to LOOK like newspaper clippings. J'ordos sent me a while ago a pdf file which contained some XCOM stuff and newspaper documents (supposedly) featured prominently in that. I think it was the manual or something.

I thought that maybe the tabloids would be the first papers to jump to the alien thread. So I'd imagine that the first messages about alien crafts would come from these papers and later in gameplay other sources would pop up like police reports, military documents or serious newspapers.

So the first notices of the story might even arrive like this:

(It's supposed to look like a paper fished out of the bin after it was thrown away. And I don't know how to write tabloid-style yet... I admit!)

Attached Files

The newspaper idea seems to have parted a bit from what the player knows. I'll start a new thread for it.

Haha! I'm now the Supreme Commander of X-COM. Time to kiss Earth goodbye.

My first order of business: Homeless people make cheap rookies, and are great at opening UFO doors. Heck, they're so cheap, I'm going to replace all personel with them! Secondly: This organisation takes too much money to run. Weapon shipments will come from Siberia from now on. Costly maintenance is to be cut on all facilities. That includes venting.Thirdly: We have a new colonel. His name is Facehugger, he loves aliens, and I want you all to treat him with respect.Lastly: I'll be in my condo on an undisclosed island, if you need me. Good day.

I've updated the asset list to include a link to this thread, towards the bottom under miscellaneous. I think sticking to this official document for the initial X-Net entry is best, as it's a military document, and then using the additional entry section yet to be developed, the other news clips could be used there. Also having them appear in some of the opening game intro would be appropriate.

wow you guys have really thrashed this out, and its better than ever, nice one.

btw, although I pulled Townsville out of the air (a place I dived in Oz) I think that this "Townsville" should forever remain unspecified in terms of country since:

1. Its a nice non-specific name anyway
2. It allows the player to use thier imagination a bit
3. It makes it feel obvious and familiar instantly. It would be so well known anyway that newspapers and so on would never feel the need to specifiy.

Also I don't think any name for the event should have hostile conotations. I think governments in general would try to avoid calling it somthing paniky like "... killings" or "judgement day or somthing like that".

Also I love the idea of newspaper clippings but a FANTASTIC opening sequence would surely included frantic sections of a newscast from Townsville (in multiple llanguages if possible) like at the beginning of C&C Generals Zero Hour;

"The fighting is finaly over and now the panick has begun... how can we comprehend the enourmity what has happened... aliens... visitors from another world... unprepared... the military is refusing to release numbers of casualities at this time, fueling speculation of a massacre... world leaders are urging calm... now the world has one question... what do we do now?"

I think that there should always be a kind of cloud of ambiguity enshrouding every released part of story the player uncovers. That UN document a page back was great--but the thing is, game manual aside (I never read X-Com's manual ), what made X-Com so great is the fact you start off with no real knowledge of what's going on. There's fear of occasional abductions and what have you, but from the beginning, you're not sure if the aliens are hostile or what their intentions are. It's clear from the name of the game (xenocide--just so catchy) that the idea is that the player will hate the aliens, but this hate should be learned, not forced. Starting with "the city is ruined, people are dying by the hundreds" gives an "aliens are bad, bad things" feel. The player should get a couple moments of gameplay in, looking around, investigating the odd UFO sighting, then all of a sudden experience the horrible acts of terror the aliens commit themselves. What starts as an internationally-funded investigatory branch quickly turns into a desperate effort to combat the alien forces. The player learns that particular part of the story--the aliens are indeed quite hostile, and it's their responsibility to deal with it.

That's how the story should be handed out. In order to see the next plot twist, they must earn it themselves, in their own way. Say the player manages to successfully investigate alien abduction patterns; after a while, a different aspect of the story appears: the abductions. What's the purpose? What are they doing? The player can learn this for himself through doing, which is something videogames in general tend to go lax on. You learn through what you do--that's why the first X-Com was such a great game.

I'll toss up a couple stupid ideas later once I puzzle something out. I don't know--what do you guys think? I just wanted to avoid the cliches and predictability inherent in "alien-related" stories nowadays. Especially in view of the fact that X-Com didn't feel "cliched" at all. Make the story less cookie-cutter, you know?

I have just been sifting through this thread - and I have had an idea.

If you want to hear something that should inspire the above 'fantastic opening sequence', which I am fully behind, then listen to Chris Rea's Road to heck Part 1. That should get the creative juices flowing....

TMM, that is a GREAT idea. In the very beginning, all the player should know is that the aliens will defend themselves if necessary. Then, when the first terror site hits, we can give a UN report on the matter similar to what has already been proposed. That way, we don't know their motivations until roughly a game month into the game. And even then, we still don't know!

I'm only partially inactive. I can still be reached at cpl.facehugger@gmail.com, and via PM. Preferably the former.

Well, at least it makes it seem that little bit less linear, which is always a nice little bonus, right? Of course we all know that we're going to be kicking alien tail sooner or later (or vice versa), but hey--making the player guess a bit is cool, too.

if that's so, then starting off the game with a fully built base with two interceptors can a carrier loaded with well equipped troopers kinda gives it away...
why would we need that kind of force when you want to try to make peaceful contact...

Unless...
When the player starts his/her first game ever, they start off with a very simple base, basically, the access lift, a small neudar, a large nuedar under construction, general stores, a research lab with 20 scientists, hangar with a transport plane, and a living facility.

We start off with like 5 soldiers, and then the initial objective is to make contact...
Meaning we don't shoot down ufos, we try to chase them and meet them on the ground when they land...

So for the first week of the game, we'll be chasing ufos around, but they just keep speeding by. During this time, the only research topic we have would be "Communications", i.e. how to communicate with the aliens. And we can ake this topic have a real effect by having to research it before we can obtain the "Alien Origins" research via researching a live non-terrorist alien...

Now, so time randomly during this week, you'll receive a report that a large ufo is apporaching a major city near your base... So you rush over there to make first contact... and you meet up with your first Terror Site...

Now, chances are either the player will loose the whole team, or bug out as soon as possible, but instead of a mission report, we segue into a cutscene and the gae offically starts.

But if the player has to go through this every time he starts a new game, it's going to get irritating, so after the first game, he has an option of whether to play the "Intro Mission" or not...

Just about every mutinational investigative committee/chair branch has some military presence--considering the diversity of X-Corps weapons and standard equipment (Russian dropships, American fighter planes, etc.), the basic, starting loadout seems normal enough to me, alien threat or no. C'mon, you say that a military gives it away? And to think that the UN is armed...

This is a great thread! I never had the chance to read it before. A lot of the stuff in the thread sounds like it belongs in the manual, but the info might put the Xenocide world into context. Anyway, I wanted to clarify what is known at the game's start.

What is known the beginning of the game:- First recorded Alien activity (alien abductions) in 1961 (Az's Alien Goal, Alien Abduction)- First UFO shot down in 2011 (Az's Alien Goal)- Aliens attack in 2012, destroying satellite defenses and some major earth military installations (Az's Alien Goal)- I'm guessing that the existence of Aliens is well-known on Earth after this, though there is some level of media suppression; the full extent of Alien activities is not known by the general public (Alien Harvest, other CTs)- X-Corps founded in 2013 (see original post)- The X-Corps is a secretive organization, even from Earth's populace (original post, and another CT I can't remember)

There were some other things I wanted to add, but they've since slipped my mind. Oh well, I hope the (short) list is helpful...